Lawbreaker Covanta was chosen by undue-influence-DCC to operate the proposed Poolbeg Incinerator in a secret contract, a contract which is being used to blackmail taxpayers. Covanta's agents in corrupt Ireland seem to be using the US Ambassador to create investment threats and local TDs for lies about jobs. If successful Covanta stands to grab and export €750 million of Irish money to New Jersey or to offshore tax havens, perhaps via the US Virgin Islands.

Front and centre at public consultations in the run-up to the
hotly-contested Metro [incinerator] vote was Mark Olsen, business manager for the
Construction and Specialized Workers Local 1110, speaking on behalf of
the Coalition of BC Building Trades Unions.

Building Trades Unions's Olsen pulled no punches, pitching hard for a mass burn incinerator proposed at Gold River [near Vancouver] by Covanta Energy of New Jersey.

In Covanta’s case, the agreement offered vital lobbying leverage, providing a new and Canadian public advocate for a firm that is new to the province. Although the municipality of Gold River and the Muchalaht First Nation both endorsed the project, [Building Trades Union] Olsen and his 50 supporters gave Covanta a big profile at public meetings in Metro [Vancouver] and garnered significant media coverage.

August 29, 2010

It's often said by Americans that the US government is the Washington Office for Corporate America. Today the US government's ambassador and chief-salesman resides in the Phoenix Park HQ of the previous coloniser, the British Empire. An American ambassador lobbying for a New Jersey lawbreaker does not embarrass BIFFO.

BIFFO IS NOT EMBARRASSED

The Independent claims Biffo is "embarrassed". Patriot BIFFO is not reported to be embarrassed by reports of a foreign government strong-arming in Ireland for a US lawbreaking corporation.

Nor by multiple Poolbeg business deals and possible scams which have crippled Irish society. The Indo does
not mention any embarrassment about the seven hundred and fifty million
Euro the philistine Poolbeg Incineration project would export from
Ireland via Belgium-Netherlands-Luxembourg-Aruba to the land of Tony Soprano.The Independent does not say whether BIFFO
is embarassed by the Drumcondra Mafia's alleged scams such as the Sheedy Affair (see Matt Coopers book & August 2010 Irish Times). Nor by appointments of buddies to Dublin Port Company in Poolbeg.

Why did the ambassador, a member of George Bush's Republican Party, get the Ireland retirement job from a Democrat? What intel from Pembroke Road and echelon can the ambassador kindly share with BIFFO? Perhaps some tips so he too can win it on de horses. Or perhaps some stuff of a personal nature on Enda or Der Grosse Schiesskerl Aus Offalynot suitable for the public domain.

The Indo spin-machine used to be 'managed' by billionaires including Tony O'Reilly. However banks, possibly American, took over the 'newspaper' following bad management of its assets. O'Reilly worked for years in Pittsburg selling sugary tomato sauce and baked beans, toilet rolls or re-used Indo's optional. Millionaire ambassador Rooney owns a football team in Pittsburg.

August 26, 2010

Patriot Pat Kenny did a pro-Covanta broadcast from FF's Cute-Wee-Hoor-Radio, RTE. Adverse possession Pat is a totally honest man who unfortunately does not directly enjoy the CPO privileges reserved for the honest men at DCC.

Undue-Influence-DCC favours compulsory purchase of land ('CPO'). Pat Kenny favours squatting or 'adverse possession' as its known in NAMA-Ebonics. So naturally he might favour DCC. Or he might not.

Pat may also be a paid-up member of Eejits Ireland where waster PJ Rotten is a VP and where innocently hijacked EI issues somewhat dodgy pro-incineration "reports", totally innocently omitting certain pertinent relationships to the incineration industry, after socialization in the Ice Bar.

On RTE, Pat Kenny apparently read questions from a script supplied to his research team by Covanta's spin company MKC or by RPS's Bambi. (MKC: Where Health Minister Harney's partner promotes privatized USA health care apartheid in Ireland). Spin company RPS dresses itself up as an engineering consultant. PJ's RPS with a "ex"-RPS employee embedded at Bord Pleanála consults for Shell in Enda Kenny and Lucinda Creighton's Mayo SAC's and bogland-habitats and for DCC. DCC has a secret contract with lawbreaker Covanta.

Pat Kenny did not ask about Covanta's record of lawbreaking in the USA.

Pat Kenny did not ask about Judge McKechnie's unapproved judgement that DCC's Twomey, now retired on a state pension, used undue influence and massaged reports from RPS.

Pat Kenny did not query the role of the Drumcondra Mafia.

Pat Kenny did not mention CPO'd land nor the adverse possession of land or strands.

Pat Kenny did not ask about Covanta's contract in Lake County, Florida which has burdened locals with an extra $350 Million in fees, and stopped recycling efforts by the 'bankrupted' local authorities

Pat Kenny did not mention the US Ambassador telling Paddy to jump.

Jump Paddy. Jump. Yissir Massa. How High? Good Man Pat.

__________

If you don't pay your RTE licence for Pat Kenny's salary you go to jail.

Unelected DCC officials and their waste-to-toxins operator will transfer any additional cost burdens from any premature deaths onto society. Three hundred premature deaths per year, not denied by Environment Minister Roche in a Dail Question, would cost €2.4 Billion per year. Do you own sums, and don't accept the offer of a dodgy free calculator from 'undue influence DCC' or 'massaged reports DCC '.

Irish Times. Tue, Aug 24, 2010

There has been no public scrutiny of the costs for planning and running the Poolbeg incinerator,

write JOE MCCARTHY and VALERIE JENNINGS

THE DEAL struck between Dublin City Council and Covanta for the Poolbeg incinerator is a closely guarded secret so the public has been unable to judge the value for money in this project.

We know from two previous mistakes – e-voting machines and the Westlink toll bridge – that the public has lost millions through bad deals struck by public servants making poorly-informed decisions.

There has been no public scrutiny of the costs for planning, building and running this incinerator. In 2007, without reopening the public procurement process, Dublin City Council brought Covanta into this public/private partnership (PPP) when the original consortium of DONG/Elsam withdrew. The council went ahead with an extraordinary contract with Covanta which commits the city to decades of payments whether or not the waste is actually available.

The private operator in a PPP is supposed to bear the risk, but in this case the council has removed the risk by giving financial certainty to Covanta via the 25-year municipal contract at a fixed gate fee for 320,000 tonnes per annum. Thus the people of Dublin are carrying the risk, not Covanta.

We have asked the council at open days, at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Bórd Pleanála oral hearings and via Freedom of Information requests for details of the original financial model and for details of the contract costings but the council refuses to divulge any details on the basis of commercial confidentiality.

Therefore the figures used in this article are our best estimates based on information that is in the public domain and our extrapolations. We would be happy to revise our calculations if Dublin City Council would reveal their actual figures.

Because we do not have details of the “put or pay” contract between the council and Covanta we have estimated a gate fee of €80 per tonne (this estimate is based on figures presented to the oral hearings). At €80 per tonne Covanta would be guaranteed €25.6 million per annum for the first 320,000 tonnes. This revenue is more than enough to make a profit for Covanta.

On the same basis, we estimate the likely penalties for the city council not meeting the “put or pay” clause to be in the order of €14.4 million per annum.

Because the plant is oversized at 600,000 tonnes Covanta will be free to offer the excess capacity at any marginal price it chooses. This could lead to undercutting of other operators. Recycling and mechanical biological treatment (MBT), which are more environmentally friendly disposal methods, would be undermined. This has already happened in US cities where Covanta is operating.

A presentation by Covanta to the Welsh government released under FoI reveals an offer by Covanta to operate a 600,000 tonne incinerator just like Poolbeg for a gate fee of £45 (€53) per tonne. An agreement signed in the US by Elbert County, Georgia, which names Covanta as operator of a planned incinerator the same size as Poolbeg, has a gate fee of just $25 (€20) per tonne.

Why has Dublin City Council apparently committed to a gate fee which is 50 per cent more expensive than the offer in Wales and four times the cost in Georgia?

The additional income to Covanta would be €8.64 million annually over the Welsh price or €19.2 million over the US price.

Then there is the question of revenue from the sale of electricity.

We estimate the electricity revenue from burning 320,000 tonnes to be €11.5 million annually and Covanta generally retains energy revenues from tip-fee type contracts, although again we don’t know what revenue sharing is agreed for Dublin.

Covanta’s extra income in Dublin, compared to Wales and the US, therefore appears to be between €20 million and €30 million annually. Over the 25 years of the contract Covanta could take between €500 million and €750 million in extra income in Dublin.

Incineration was selected in 1997 based on a flawed analysis. The margin by which incineration was chosen over MBT was just 19 per cent but several costs were omitted, including the cost of the land, the cost of disposing of ash and the cost of CO2 emissions.

The incinerator will produce mountains of bottom ash – 150,000 tonnes every year – and the city council proposed to export this ash from Poolbeg by ship for “recycling” in the UK or Denmark. The cost of transporting the bottom ash was omitted from the original analysis. The impact of handling and disposing of the bottom ash was excluded from both the Bórd Pleanála and EPA hearings.

If, as is likely, the bottom ash is to go to the new landfill at Nevitt in north Co Dublin the planning permission will have to be “rectified”, according to former assistant city manager Matt Twomey.

Bottom ash is an active material because of the heavy metal content and will need a waste licence before being exported or being dumped in landfill. The ash needs to be cured by allowing it to sit for weeks in the air before it can be tested for hazardous classification.

The costs of the ash handling, transport and land for curing have also beenomitted.

The original analysis omitted the cost of disposal of fly ash which is toxic and needs specialised handling and disposal, usually in salt mines in Germany. Again the cost of transport was omitted.

The cost of the large quantities of CO2 produced by the incinerator was also omitted.

When all these costs are taken into account MBT is actually cheaper than incineration.

Dublin City Council is spinning about the likelihood of large fines. Fines for breaching the EU landfill directive have not been imposed anywhere and are unlikely to arise in Ireland. This is because the MBT plants already in operation suggest the 2010 target will be met. EPA guidelines on source segregation and regulations requiring the composting of food waste will help the country meet the targets for future years.

If the Dublin region had a number of smaller MBT plants there would be less distance for trucks to transport the waste, more jobs and more competition in the marketplace. This would provide better value for the residents and businesses of Dublin than one enormous incinerator monopolising the waste market. It would also mean that Dublin would not be stuck with an inflexible contract for 25 years, restricting any innovation in waste management.

This project was intentionally split into pieces, each requiring approval from a different authority. There is no proper cost benefit analysis for the overall project.

E-voting and Westlink turned out to be extremely costly to the Irish taxpayer. They were undertaken by the authorities without proper scrutiny of the costs – €60 million in the case of e-voting and €600 million to buy out the Westlink toll bridge. We need an opportunity to discuss the value for money of the proposed incinerator and the enormous costs and profits associated with it.

It is time for an independent, open inquiry into how this project came about, what the costs have been and what the financial consequences will be for Dublin’s citizens.

August 22, 2010

Money and other favours given to Irish politicians and their cronies are kept hidden in Ireland.

In August 2010, Covanta has Irish politicians such as TD Quinn and knowledgeable Cllr Tormey putting jobs scare stories into the media. Meanwhile DCC has withheld information, used undue influence and massaged reports (Judge McKechnie). A lawyer used by DCC held a fundraisor for Obama in Dublin. Favouring US private-healthcare companies, TD Harney's HSE refuses a baseline health study for Poolbeg.

A US Republican Party millionaire is also lobbying in Ireland for Covanta - US Ambassador Rooney, owner of a Pittsburg football franchise. Mr. Obama appointed Rooney. Billionaire Sam Zell owns the Chicago Cubs and is the largest owner of Covanta stock. Zell has put the Chicago Tribune, LA Times and others into bankruptcy ("Zell Hell"). Covanta knows how to do bankruptcy.

August 21, 2010

Repeated violator Covanta does not transfer its problems to other parishes, a best-available-technology. Instead it fobs off the residents whose health it threatens by paying small fines. Whilst also increasing the millions of dollars it uses each year to "lobby" politicians.

Connecticut State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is suing Covanta for emitting excessive levels of a carcinogen for the second time in three years.

Covanta's wonderful machinery broke down in April 2010. Was it fixed and reported in April 2010? No. Covanta only reported the failure in July 2010. Does this mean Covanta was pumping out deadly dioxins for four months or longer? If so, thanks to the jet stream, Covanta is already dropping dioxins onto Dublin.

There is no safe level for dioxins. Nevertheless, RPS's Rudden paid €25 million by DCC, spins that "modern incinerators" do not have "ANY" health impact. With Covanta's record this spin is at best cynical if not reckless, though hijacked Eejits Ireland may disagree.

Paying off piddling fines is cheaper than the continuous control of dioxins with technically impossible engineering. Small fines maximise owner & director bonuses, throwing the vast health costs onto residents. Does Mr Zell, Covantas biggest investor, need the money now that his newspaper business is bankrupt?

"We get some smells from that place, sometimes it smells like anti-freeze, sometimes it smells like garbage, burnt tires, whatever, and it kind of makes you wonder what you might be putting into your system breathing that air," he said.

August 18, 2010

COVANTA EXPANSION ON HOLD

Covanta has decided to postpone its expansion of the Westbury, New York State, plant, citing economic reasons for the delay.

Covanta advised that the factors involved were low tipping fees, a tax break from the Town of Hempstead was not as favorable as thought, and the rate it could charge National Grid for power was not as high as predicted.

As a result, and also because the State is putting pressure on the local governments on Long Island for increased recycling, the Covanta project has been put on hold.

Yes Eurocitizen the people of Dublin did elect a majority of Labour and FG Councilors to Dublin City Council but because of legislation brought in by Fianna Fail - to which you might have some allegiance - all waste management matters and powers have been tranferred to the Manager. So much for Fianna Fails support for democracy.

How about some honesty from Labour?

Labour appears to fully support a toxins-from-waste incinerator.

TD Quinn appears to have taken the scare-story-script directly from Covanta's PR company MKC, a PR company apparently spinning for US private health care in Ireland and connected to Health Minister Harney.

Then TD Quinn seems to have acted on Newstalk as a mouthpiece for Covanta. Why is Labour supporting Covanta, a company which is reported to have violated workers rights in the USA?The Covanta company’s illegal conduct caused workers to lose between 8% and 11% of their annual income in 2009. TD Quinn did not contest the Big Lie about jobs for Ireland. At best during operation of the proposed toxins-from-waste incinerator perhaps 50 low-wage jobs will go to 'non-nationals' on minimum wage - to remove illegal waste or explosives or radioactive waste delivered by huindreds of trucks.

On Newstalk TD Quinn apparently repeated Covanta's PR spin and Big Lie that US companies will invest elsewhere if Big Lie-X, Big Lie-Y & Z. Covanta and its predecessor Ogden have allegedly broken the law in the USA thousands of times. Since when do honest Google, HP, Intel, etc take investment guidance from a company with a record of lawbreaking?

As a qualified architect it is curious TD Quinn makes no comments about a philistine structure wrecking the vistas and tourism of Dublin, as seen from his front window.

After Judge McKechnie's unapproved adjudication in Dec 2009 on "undue influence" in the Bord Pleanala and EPA processes & massaging of RPS reports by DCC's now-retired asst-city-manager, misdirecting the public, it is very curious TD Quinn fully approves the possibly dodgy Bord Pleanala and EPA "decisions" and claims a lawful process has been conducted, so every Paddy should submit to these great hierarchies (paraphrasing). TD Quinn seems to support the decisions of organisations stacked with political cronies and "ex" incinerator-employees at board level.

Most curious is TD Quinns apparent full support for the blackmailing of Irish taxpayers through the still-secret contract DCC wrote *before* either Bord Pleanala or EPA issued their edicts in 2007. This smells of Anglo-Irish Bank and the systemic importance Big Lie.

August 3, 2010

The Irish Times "reporter" has printed another press release apparently taken directly from DCC/Covanta/RPS. In the press release the head of lawbreaker Covanta says illegal waste dumped in Northern Ireland could have been burned in Poolbeg. If only Paddy and Mick were not so thick. The Irish Times propaganda mentions an unnamed "spokesman", ignoring spokeswimmin reporters and the one-eyed transformed into bicycles by the atoms. As to the identity of the esteemed spokesman, waste-entrepreneur Toni Soprano had no comment.

In Italy waste illegally dumped by the mafia has been exported to Germany, to finance and justify German incinerators. DONG's engineer said truck drivers at Poolbeg could be stopped dumping illegal radioactive waste into the proposed incinerator by checking their bus passes, or other ID, or whatever.

It is not known if the Irish Times reporter has received ethics guidance from a Dublin senator expensed from West Cork. A long way by bicycle. Inside a different black hole.

Energy Answers "International" has just stiffed Ireland for a large sum of money says RTE.

Perhaps Covanta's PR company will issue The Big Lie again that Ireland will lose investment from honest US companies if honest waste-to-toxins incineration corporations from the USA are not allowed to dictate to the supine government of the NAMA Republic. Everyone knows the honest US Embassy does not have humint nor Echelon-intel to blackmail Der Grosse Schiesskerl Aus Offaly, der Biffo.

Covanta bought most of the waste-to-toxins assets of Energy Answers inside the borders of the USA in 2007. Though it dreams of Enron, conveniently the remaining shell of Energy Answers with offices in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands has nothing whatsoever to do with Covanta, and is absolutely not a shell company. Honestly. Covanta-Dublin registered in offshore Luxembourg is also a fully honest company. What tax dodge? What possible evasion of health-effect liabilities?

An "EX" EPA-Ireland founding-director was paid to consult for or is it lobby-for Energy Answers Intl. An "EX" EPA-Ireland director was also paid to consult for or is it lobby-for DCC/RPS/Covanta. Covanta's PR company seems to be connected to Irish Health Minister Harney. A 2010 Engineers Ireland report curiously omitted very strong connections by authors to Indaver, to Energy Answers Intl and to Covanta's proposed Poolbeg Incinerator and to RPS/DCC.